Tag Archives: terrorist attacks

Five-year-old Omran Daqneesh, with bloodied face, sits with his sister inside an ambulance after they were rescued following an airstrike in the rebel-held al-Qaterji neighbourhood of Aleppo, Syria August 17, 2016. Picture taken August 17, 2016. REUTERS/Mahmoud Rslan

Our lives are dominated by medical concerns at the moment.

I’ve just been in the hospital again, this time with vomiting, dehydration, high blood pressure and atrial fibrillation. I drink more water than most people I know, but seem to have trouble retaining it. I’ve started supplementing my diet with a natural substance full of electrolytes. Together with prayer and moderate exercise, I hope this will keep me out of the hospital.

Of far greater concern is our ninth grandchild, who turns three months on August 24th. He has saggital craniolsinostenosis and is scheduled for surgery on November 4th. His name is Hayden. Your prayers for him are greatly appreciated.

A longer-term problem remains with his eldest brother, Aubren, who is autistic. He will be attending a new school after Labor Day, which is supposed to have a good program for autism. He attended a school last year that helped him considerably, but we are now in a different school district. Autistic children do not generally adjust well. Again, we ask for your prayers.

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At the same time, do not forget to pray: “Thy Kingdom come.” (Matthew 6:10) 72 hours ago a photo of a five-year-old boy in Aleppo went around the world and showed the continued suffering of children in Syria, in a war without end. Similar photos were taken of children during the Blitz in World War II. Some of those children were evacuated to rural areas for their own safety. Now, the pressure is on to evacuate the children to other countries. Surely western nations can secure a war-free zone near Aleppo that would provide safety to all children, while greater pressure is applied on Russia to end the war. The latest news is that the boy’s older brother has died from his injuries.

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An Orthodox Jew was attacked Friday morning in Strasbourg, France, by a man shouting “Allahu Akhbar!” The police say there was no link with terrorism. I suppose they mean there was no perceived link with Islamic State. What they should be looking for is a link with Islam. If that were the standard to judge attacks by, the general public would be better informed of the dangers from radical Islam. Almost all terror attacks are perpetrated by Muslims – whether they are affiliated with ISIS or not is a side issue.

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With so many attacks in France, Marine LePen is now the favorite to win the French presidential election next year. As Hillary Rodham Clinton is leading polls in the US, 2017 could see all four major western countries (Britain, France, Germany and the US) led by women. That would be a definite first! I should add that, beyond their gender, they have little in common.

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Donald Trump was in town on Friday. Dimondale, to be exact, just one suburb away from where we live. My son, Kurt, and I had two tickets. Trump’s speech was postponed from 2 till 5pm due to an urgent visit to Louisiana to deliver relief to flood victims, while the president was playing golf and Mrs. Clinton was “resting.” We arrived at the building three hours before the rally. The lines were unbelievably long. Lots of enthusiastic people, almost all white, waiting in line to enter. Kurt thought, correctly, that I would not be able to handle the line, so after looking around we returned home and I watched the speech on television. It was widely thought to be the best speech he had ever given. Even his detractors agreed on that point.

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Meanwhile, even the pro-Clinton Boston Globe has called on the Democratic presidential candidate to close down the Clinton Foundation, a “charity” that has helped make the Clintons very wealthy people. A spokesperson for the Foundation has said that if Mrs. Clinton wins in November, they will stop accepting foreign donations. It’s a clear conflict of interest and one of the reasons people question her ethics.

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If Trump wins, it could mean the end of the western alliances that have helped give us peace for 70 years, coinciding with America’s supremacy as the global superpower. Mr. Trump has been critical of the fact that some allies are not doing enough. That’s a fair point, but overlooks the fact that the alliances are what give America it’s leadership role. If NATO is disbanded, the US president will no longer be “the Leader of the Free world.”

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Having said that, if Mrs. Clinton wins the election, promising more of the same, the country is well on the way to national bankruptcy.

Either way, America’s period of global domination is coming to an end. In February 2017, just after the new president takes office, it will be exactly 70 years since the first perception that Washington had replaced London as the main center of global power. Seventy years. That’s how long the first superpower, Babylon, stayed at the top. (“When seventy years are completed….” Jeremiah 29:10). All great powers eventually burn out – America will be no different. America replaced the British Empire. Who will replace America?

The attack on the Canadian parliament yesterday gives us a glimpse of a terrifying future.

The perpetrator of the crime, which left one Canadian soldier dead and resulted in the attacker himself being killed, was a native Canadian, a 32-year-old white male who recently converted to Islam. Whether there was a formal link to ISIS is irrelevant – he was certainly influenced by ISIS and the terrorist organization’s call for westerners to stage terrorist attacks at home in protest at their countries’ bombing ISIS fighters in Syria and Iraq. Canada joined the coalition bombing campaign just a few days ago.

Only two days earlier, another Canadian soldier was killed by a fellow citizen, a Canadian convert to Islam, in a hit and run in the province of Quebec.

The Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper was quick to describe both incidents as terrorist attacks. This is in stark contrast to US authorities who dismiss a serious attack as “a work related incident” (Fort Hood and the recent beheading of a woman in a food factory).

Similar attacks to those in Canada will follow soon in the US, UK, Australia, Denmark and other western countries.

This does not mean that only government buildings will be targeted. Security will no doubt be strengthened in the countries concerned, following yesterday’s attack. Other potential targets include schools, football stadiums, malls and grocery stores.

My wife and I lived through a terrorist war in Rhodesia forty years ago. Before it was over, every building and grocery store checked our bags when we entered to make sure there was no bomb inside. It was all very time consuming, but necessary. We even had to check under our cars before driving to make sure there were no explosive devices underneath.

What is interesting in the Canadian incident is that the young man was a convert to Islam. He was not an immigrant or the son of an immigrant from a Muslim area. Ironically, his father is an immigration official. Our prisons are full of Muslim converts. They are all around us – the daughter of one of our neighbors converted some years ago. Earlier this week, three teenage girls from a Denver suburb were detained in Frankfort, en route to Turkey to join ISIS forces in neighboring Syria.

A radio program I listened to sometime ago asked converts why they changed their religion. One answer was that Islam is a more simple religion, the Trinity being rather confusing. Another answer was particularly interesting, that Islam is essentially anti-western and anybody disillusioned with the western way of life will be attracted by Islam’s strict rules on morality. Watch for the religion to grow, as people perceive Islam is winning against a degenerate West! As the religion grows, countries will be faced with civil war. In both Canadian attacks, we saw a Canadian killing a fellow Canadian – this will soon likely happen on a much bigger scale and not just in Canada.

Division surfaced in the wake of the Canadian attacks. Many people thought the attacks would not have happened if Canada had decided not to support the bombing campaign against ISIS. They said that Canada should concentrate on humanitarian missions in Syria and Iraq and be ready to take in thousands of refugees from the region. This would, of course, increase Canada’s Muslim population.

Similar divisions exist elsewhere. The UK National Union of Students has voted not to condemn ISIS.

In previous clashes between Islam and the West in past centuries, battle lines were drawn, with Muslims on one side and mainstream Christians on the other. This time, it’s more complicated. There are millions of Muslims inside the West, while only a handful of westerners live in the Islamic world. Islamic countries may allow westerners to work there on contract (I have a nephew in Oman) but they never receive permanent residence or citizenship.

We start out at a disadvantage as this clash of civilizations progresses.

It’s a troubling time. As a Christian, I take comfort in God’s assurance of protection. In Psalm 91:5-7 we read:

5You shall not be afraid of the terror by night,Nor of the arrow that flies by day,6 Nor of the pestilence that walks in darkness,Nor of the destruction that lays waste at noonday.

7 A thousand may fall at your side,
And ten thousand at your right hand;But it shall not come near you.